AT&T's decades of throttling our internet speeds and leaving our land-lines and VOIP's without minimal security.!!!

Um... the first ADSL standard was ratified in 1998. which is only 23 years ago.  That's not nearly 30 in anyone's book.  50 Mbps has only been available within the last 8 or so.  

Your continued use of AT&T services outweighs any refusal you might make.  If you don't like the terms, you'll need to quit using AT&T services to avoid them.

I'm sure AT&T will start throttling your service to 1 Mbps as payback for this post.

@JefferMC 😁

Didn’t I see this exact same post a few days ago under a different name?

Ok, JefferMC. If you are accurate with the dates. I'll concede to being inaccurate about how long it has been. I was a test home in (Mandarin) Jax. Fla. when the internet was first available. Or so I was told. I had internet services prior to your 1998. My website was built after I had my first internet service. I moved into this house around 30-years ago.

So for the sake of argument, I'll wait for you to tell me when the test pilot started. The point is, AT&T has NEVER DELIVERED the internet speed they sold me, or anyone else, unless they were being hounded by the FCC. Then and only then, did they magically provide slightly higher than 10% more download speed than I was paying for.

Would you or anyone else agree or disagree, with my (basic statement) that Bellsouth, later AT&T or ATT (I'll identify all of them from now on as ATT), at least (as of your date 1998 that you used) provide less download speed, than they and or their sales reps, sold us.?? 

Would you also agree or disagree, that ATT and those same representatives (when complaints from customers grew too large to ignore), changed their wording to "BEST EFFORT/S".??

Would you also agree or disagree that ATT's best effort/s later became defined as within 10% and further bumped to 20% less than what they sold us as the speeds increased throughout our contracts.?? 

example;  If you paid for 30mb of download speed. It was well within ATT's "best effort/s" explanation, to provide us with only 24mb of download speed, which also became the most common speed I received.

Then when too many of ATT customers got fed up again, ATT magically created another tier/price point for the speed of "UP TO 50mb's of download speed. Woo woo.!!!

But that meant what.?  You guest it Bob.!!

Come on down, audience.!!!

On the price is right, we 40mbs for you while you have fun in the sun for the low price of 50mbs.!!! 

So since I easily gave in to your dates as true for the moment, what do you have to say about the overall TRUTH.?????

Has ATT been throttling us down, as they sell us what they should have been providing us in the first place.??

The answer is NO.!! Throttling is adjusting our speeds based on our overall usage or our usage during certain times of the day, based on other peoples use in your area.

The TRUTH is they set us at 8% -10% less and as time went on and we got rid of DIRECTV and started streaming with other apps or streaming with ATT's DIRECTV NOW they stuck closer to 20% less.

Please tell me your thoughts and opinions,  JefferMC  

I'm waiting to hear where I am incorrect now. I'm not perfect, but I don't sell one thing and deliver something else, intentionally.!!  As ATT has for at least 2-decades. or 23-years.??

I don't even want to get started on ATT's roll back of UNLIMITED DATA, UNLIMITED VOIP nationally for my home/office. Can anyone remember when ATT started telling us there was no more UNLIMITED DATA, because so many people left DIRECTV for streaming. It was OK as long as we were using DIRECTVNOW then ATTTV NOW but when DIRECTVNOW continued to change their platform and your streams were freezing. They showed us how close we were to passing the NEW LIMIT for data, that they said we would never go over. what was it JefferMC $50 per 10 mb's... I honestly do not remember. But ATT lied.

And who could argue our usage, they didn't give us a meter to prove our use. Not like when ATT went out and bought speed test apps to lie to us about our download speeds. Policing your self doesn't work for me.!!!

I have logs and ATT has logs that prove the only time I ever received what I paid for was when I jumped to a higher download speed, bought another product to keep unlimited data for streaming, or FILED A OFFICIAL COMPLAINT to the FCC.

Do not fall for their PRESIDENTIAL GROUPE to now provide you with the service you have been paying for over the years.!!! it only lasts for 3-4 months. 

Then the FCC ignores you again.!!

The downfall for ATT in court, will be either they lose, misplace the "HISTORY TESTS that I and tens of thousands of other people recorded on the speed test app that they bought. Or provide them and have them audited and authenticated, by a group or agency that ATT does not control. Peoples customer service complaints and records must be saved now before they claim these new contracts are legally binding because we all used the services after the notice letter. 

There may have been test DSL deployments for an earlier version, ISDN was still the next step up from dialup in 1996 for the BellSouth footprint.  Dialup access to the Internet was still in its infancy less than 30 years ago.  Remember CompuServe, Prodigy and AOL?

I have gotten 110% or more (I just measured 122%) of my subscribed download speed for the past 11.5 years.  I have not yet had to make any complaint to the BBB or the FCC to obtain that.

AT&T says that as long as you're getting more than the next tier down (often 50% of the current tier), you're within their benchmark.  Because you are getting more value (even if it's not much) than if you were at the lower tier.

Yes, all providers say "up to," because all providers' service can have issues that affect your bandwidth, many of which are beyond their control (and some are within their control, but are in the business plan):

1) Quality of the lines in your home

2) Quality of the lines to your home

3) Length of the lines to your home

4) Quality of customer owned equipment

5) Quality of the measurements used by the customer for bandwidth

6) A shared facilities model where it's not financially sensible to dedicate the entire facilities necessary to carry maximum capacity for all subscribers

7) Radio Frequency Interference

8) Quality of the installation

There is packet overhead, and latency delay, both of which will conspire to give you around 10 to 15% less than the maximum actual data rate.  Perhaps this is what has your shorts in a way.

Usage caps can allow the ISP to more safely create a business model that says that I can assume that some percentage of the data subscribed for will not actually be in use.  If all users can always use their full bandwidth, then the aggregated links have to be bigger than if they all use 5 or 10% on average.  It's insurance.  OTOH, I do see that the many ways that you can avoid getting the cap, among them subscribing to the TV service, tends to make you wonder about if that's any real part of their plan.

If the contract reads "50Mbps" that is different than "up to 50Mbps" for the very reasons pointed out above. I have a 600Mbps plan and routinely get that and a bit over wired. WiFi I routinely get around 500Mbps. The OP should just switch carriers if he feels he's being mislead or cheated by AT&T.

Your subscribed speed (50Mbps) is not a guaranteed constant and never would be listed as such. It is a max/up-to speed. Similar to traffic on the freeway, it is the limit not the mandatory target.

Now ideally you should get around 80-90% of your speed on average. But if for example the tiers are 25Mbps and then 50Mbps, and you get at least 26Mbps at minimum then you are technically getting what you pay for. Though in that example the higher tier wouldn't be a good value for most and so not suggested.

Just like back in the dial-up days. Having a plan that authorized 56Kbps, getting 14.4Kbps was still what I was paying for (especially since there weren't different speed plans available yet where I lived).

Currently AT&T is working on expanding and improving their service to Fiber (their older internet options being grandfathered and no longer offered). Though this covers several million current and potential customers, going over several years, there is no guarantee or obligation that they improve the options for where you live.

With that being said, the pandemic changed usage in the last year putting a lot more stress on residential internet (schooling, work, just being home more in general, etc.). It would makes sense that ISPs and the government would be taking a hard look at the overall infrastructure. And that would be for the entire country, not simply AT&T. It is my opinion that a better baseline of internet needs to be worked on, including extending reach to more rural or smaller areas, instead of prioritizing improving the max to select areas (which showcase for advertisements). But any improvements that might result from this will not be seen anytime soon.

ATT Conectechs employees are hackers and thieves!!!

They steal our personal information and invade our privacy. They sell and give away our personal information. Working from home and remote locations after Covid, allows hackers to "Piggy Back" or "Hitch Hike" on ATT employees conections to your computer and into your personal information. My banking account, Personal Name, Company Names, Address, Bank Name, Bank Address, Account Name, Account Numbesr, Routing Numbers, Swift Numbers, every thing required to steal my money, your money, your life savings. All due to poor and no security by ATT and their employees in India and the Philippines.

ATT has known about these breaches for years, prior to Covid and have done little to nothing to protect their customers. ATT has less than 12 employees to investigate the thousands of hacks to ATT customers world wide MONTHLY!!!

Leave ATT, you and your employees, friends and family's personal, banking, assets are at SEVERE RISK of being stolen!!!

Mike (Edited as per Community Guidelines) 

AT&T, like any other provider, does the best they can to protect the privacy of their customers. They DO NOT SELL customer information to the dark web. It is very easy for a professional hacker to gain access to your information if they do a deep dive. The fact that you posted your name on a public, customer only forum is one way to start the diving. But, as is possible with any Provider, it's always possible to have an employee with criminal intent.

Professional hackers are VERY good at hiding their tracks, spoofing their information, and, if they are located in a foreign country, U.S. laws don't really apply to them so it's difficult to prosecute.

All you can do document as much information as you can, file a police report and a complaint with the BBB and FCC. AT&T's Fraud Department will look into it as well but ultimately it's up to you to follow through.